Lawrence Cannon will be Ottawa’s new man in Paris. The former Conservative foreign affairs minister and sometime Liberal member of Quebec’s National Assembly, will leave his post at Gowlings to take on the coveted post of ambassador to the French Republic. More on the newly-appointed diplomat here.

Cannon lost his Pontiac seat in last year’s orange wave, which according to a new Canadian Press Harris Decima poll is far from subsiding. The poll suggests support for the New Democrats and Conservatives may be evenly split. The survey shows the NDP with 34 per cent of popular support, compared to 30 per cent for the Conservatives. “Remember this is a party that a decade ago, half the electorate said they would ‘never’ vote for,” pollster Allan Gregg said of the NDP. “To broaden their base as we see in these data is quite remarkable.”

Those numbers come amid an increasingly bitter second reading showdown over the budget implementation bill. The opposition parties offered fresh details on how they’ll take a stand against the massive piece of legislation, with the Liberals looking all the way forward to its return from committee. Meanwhile, the Senate is already in the thick of a pre-study at the national finance committee with enough witnesses for a crowded game of dodgeball. Check back at iPolitics.ca for more on that later.